The Path to Activism: A Qualitative Study of How Six Undergraduates of Color Became Activists While Attending the University of Michigan.

TL;DRAbstract

This study chronicles the lives and times of six young undergraduates of color and the critical transformations in activist political identity they undergo during their attempts to change the University of Michigan into a diverse learning environment of greater equality, tolerance, and inclusiveness. The life stories of these individuals are rendered here as a means of exploring the enduring question of how college students become activists and the ways they learn to cultivate the commitment to work for social change. Grounded in a biographical and narrative-based research approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with former student activists of color (three men and three women) representing three distinct eras: the 1970s, 1980s, and the early part of 2000. The student movements covered in this study include the first and third installments of the Black Action Movements, the movement to end apartheid in South Africa, the global movement to free Nelson Mandela, and the moveme

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